Adjust and excel: Coe-Brown’s Parker was indoor track quick-study

NORTHWOOD — Hannah Parker divided her 2012-13 winter sports season between playing basketball and cheering on the Coe-Brown Northwood Academy indoor track team.

Then a sophomore, Parker played part of the basketball season, but in doing so she aggravated an old running injury and decided to step away from the sport and focus on running. She spent the rest of the winter season cheering for the indoor track team, which had teammates from cross country and spring track.

But it wasn’t quite like competing, which she did this past winter in helping the Bears defend their Division II title.

“It was definitely cool being on the indoor team this year since the year before they won and I was there cheering them on,” Parker said. “It just wasn’t the same not running with all of them.”

Coe-Brown won the D-II girls title in dominating fashion with 81 points, almost double the total of second-place Oyster River (42).

Parker, who was named Foster’s female indoor track athlete of the year, helped the Bears by winning the 1,000-meter run, placing third in the 300 and running a leg of the record-setting 4x800 relay.

“She was our chief spectator,” said coach Dave Zink-Mailloux of Parker during the end of the 2012-13 season. “She came to a couple of meets at UNH. She came to the state meet. You could see that the side of the track is not where she wanted to be. She wanted to be on the track. She made it pretty clear to me ‘I’m not going to do basketball. I’m going for three seasons.’ I didn’t push. I felt it was important for her to make that decision on her own.”

Parker was honored with the award, but it was far from an easy decision between her and Oyster River sophomore standout Maegan Doody. Parker edged Doody in the 1,000 by .58 seconds with a time of 3:00.42. Doody won the 1,500, and was part of a winning 4x400 relay and the 4x200 relay, which took fourth.

Although it was Parker’s first indoor track experience, she is by no means a novice to the sport of running. A two-time Foster’s cross country runner of the year and a two-time spring track athlete of the year, Parker has helped the CBNA girls cross country teams win three straight D-II and Meet of Champions titles. Last fall, Coe-Brown captured its first-ever New England cross country championship, led by Parker who was the top New Hampshire finisher.

In addition, she was part of the Bears’ 2012 and 2013 D-II spring track and field championship teams. Last spring she broke a 21-year-old New England record in the 800.

Although indoor track requires some adjustment, Parker proved to be a quick study.

“Being such a tall runner, the adjustment to a banked, shorter track it was not immediate,” said coach Dave Zink-Mailloux. “It took her a couple races to get a feel for those tighter turns. But being such a great athlete, she adapted very quickly.”

There was also some adjustment to distances. The indoor distances are in-between distances, quite different from spring track and there was an adjustment period for that as well.

“But she has great range,” said Zink-Mailloux. “In track she can run anywhere from 200 meters to two miles. It made it easier for her transitioning to the indoor distances because they are all within her range of abilities.”

“The 600 was hard to figure out,” Parker said. “It’s not 800 fast and it’s not 400 fast. It was right in the middle.”

Coe-Brown started the D-II meet with the 4x800 and with Parker running along with teammates Katie Scannell, Mary Fowler and Brooke Laskowsky, the Bears set a D-II record in 9:45.82, breaking the old mark by four and half seconds.

“That set the tone for the rest of the meet,” Zink Mailloux said. “Everything else seemed to fall into place nicely after that.”

The 1,000 was touted as the meet’s marquee event with Parker and Doody running head to head. They did not disappoint.

Zink-Mailloux recalled a St. Thomas Aquinas girl surprisingly running out to first in the first lap.

“But Hannah and Maegan caught up to her in the second lap and then it was basically just the two of them,” Zink-Mailloux said.

Around three and a half laps, Doody put on a little burst to see if she could separate herself from Parker. Zink-Mailloux said she matched Doody stride for stride.

:In that last 200 meters, there’s no one who can really stay with Hannah when she puts the pedal to the metal,” Zink-Mailloux said.

Parker won the race by a little over half a second.

“I was just trying to run as fast as I could,” Parker said. “I was trying to push myself as hard as I could, so I could do the best that I could.”

Which means Hannah Parker gets herself to a place where she finds that extra effort to push that much harder.

“What separates her is that almost pure sprinting speed ,that she has at the end of a mile or the 1,000 or the 1,500” Zink-Mailloux said. “There’s almost nobody who can match that type of speed.”

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